One of the many subjected to enforced disappearances in Libya during the uprising that started on February 17 2011, ‘Rana’ reappeared on Libyan television being questioned why she supported the revolution.

Protests in Egypt and furthermore in the rest of the Arab world have apparently infiltrated China with demonstrations been organized on February 20th in 13 major cities.

13 locations were for the “Chinese Jasmine Revolution” on Saturday February 19th and noted that it will be carried out at 2pm on the day after, China time.

Over the past few days messages regarding the demonstrations began being posted through major social networking websites such as Twitter and Facebook. Boxun, an overseas Chinese community website based in the United States that often carries news of human rights abuses in China saw its Chinese website being disabled by anonymous hackers on Saturday after Boxun News reported the event. The site posted: “We believe that the cyber attack was related to our reports about the demonstration.”. Besides Boxum, the Chinese website peacehall.com which posted the message has also been blocked.

According to report on the site, the Chinese Jasmine Revolution will take place simultaneously in Beijing, Shanghai, Tienjin, Nanjing, Xi’an, Chengdu, Changsha, Hangzhou, Guangzhou, Shenyang, Changchun, Harbin and Wuhan. It also urged the public to pack the major plazas in their own cities if they are not located in any of these 13 cities.

According to the site, the post appeals to people who dream of a better China to go to the appointed places in the thirteen cities on February 20th welcoming people from all parties, professions, religions and classes to come out to join the event, states as: “Whether you are the parents of kidney stone babies, relocated households, retired soldiers, private teachers, buy-out offer employees, laid-off workers, petitioners… we are all Chinese. You and I still have a dream about China’s future. We should be responsible for the future of our own and children”.

Slogans prepared for the demonstrations called for food, housing and jobs as well as political and judicial reforms and an end to censorship of the press.

Authorities detained activists, increased the number of police on the streets, disconnected some mobile phone text messaging services and censored Internet postings about the call to stage protests.

The campaign did not gain much traction among ordinary citizens and the chances of overthrowing the Communist government are slim, considering Beijing’s tight controls over the media and Internet. A student-led, pro-democracy movement in 1989 was crushed by the military and hundreds, perhaps thousands, were killed.

On Sunday, police took at least three people away in Beijing, one of whom tried to lay down white jasmine flowers while hundreds of people milled about the protest gathering spot, outside a McDonald’s on the capital’s busiest shopping street. In Shanghai, police led away three people near the planned protest spot after they scuffled in an apparent bid to grab the attention of passers-by.

The call is likely to fuel anxiety among China’s authoritarian government, which is ever alert for domestic discontent and has appeared unnerved by recent protests in Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain, Yemen, Algeria and Libya. It has limited media reports about them, stressing the instability caused by the protests, and restricted Internet searches to keep Chinese uninformed about Middle Easterners’ grievances against their autocratic rulers.

On Saturday in a speech to national and provincial officials, President Hu Jintao ordered them to “solve prominent problems which might harm the harmony and stability of the society.”

China’s extensive filtering and monitoring of the Internet meant that most Chinese were unlikely to know about Saturday’s call to protest.

With foot traffic always heavy at the Wangfujing pedestrian mall, it was difficult to discern who showed up to protest, who came to watch and who was out shopping. Rubberneckers outnumbered any potential protesters. Many wondered if there was a celebrity in the area because of the heavy police presence and dozens of foreign reporters and news cameras.

As the crowd swelled back and forth and police urged people to move on, 25-year-old Liu Xiaobai placed a white jasmine flower on a planter in front of the McDonald’s and took some photos with his cell phone.

“I’m quite scared because they took away my phone. I just put down some white flowers, what’s wrong with that?” Liu said afterward. “I’m just a normal citizen and I just want peace”. Security agents tried to take away Liu, but he was swarmed by journalists and eventually was seen walking away with a friend.

On Sunday, searches for “jasmine” were blocked on China’s largest Twitter-like microblog, and status updates with the word on popular Chinese social networking site Renren.com were met with an error message and a warning to refrain from postings with “political, sensitive … or other inappropriate content.”

A mass text messaging service from China Mobile was unavailable in Beijing on Sunday due to an upgrade, according to a customer service operator for the leading service provider, who did not know how long the suspension would last. In the past, Chinese authorities have suspended text messaging in politically tense areas to prevent organizing.

Read more info, opinions and debate on this matter read the next page.

Reference:

Tung Li-wen 董立文 and Associated Press writers Cara Anna and Charles Hutzler in Beijing and Elaine Kurtenbach in Shanghai.

Question by Casey: My roommate claims to be psychic and she said an earthquake is coming?
my roomate has predicted things before that have end up happening (she predicted war in libya, she predicted egyptian revolution) , i live in california in venice beach, she left and moved to kansas because she said that an earthquake is coming next month that will destroy most of southern california and send the whole state into a frenzy. she already left and headed to kansas and i was wondering if i should leave too ?

Best answer:

Answer by emberfly
Oh my god. She must be right! You better hurry! go go go go go!

Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!

Walking through a burning building one morning during the civil war in my country in 1990, on the only wall that was left standing, were graffiti the words: “Our eyes are open but we cannot see”. Someone with a magnificent sense of humour had managed to conjured laughter in the midst of tragedy and had magically captured the thought of the nation in a few words.

“Our eyes are open” was the slogan used after the 1980 revolution in Liberia. Nine years later those words vibrated through the four corners of our nation, the country was once again in the midst of a crisis, this time a civil war that would claim the lives of 150,000 of my countrymen including that of my father who was left to die in a hospital as doctors and nurses fled for their lives and that of my cousin for wearing jeans on his way to work.

Twenty years later, after so many innocent lives have been wasted, millions of dollar’s worth of property destroyed; setting the country hundreds of years backwards, things have still not changed for the people of Liberia. Today the country is still one of the poorest in the world, with no electric power supply in most part of the country, people still drink from a well and little or no paved roads in many parts of the country.

Liberia is not alone in this situation, you will find similar pictures Sierra Lone, Angola, Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, in country after country all over Africa where there have been so-called revolution or wars for change. There have been countless military coups in Africa and other parts of the world as citizens look for saviour leaders who would come and solve all of their problems and those hopes have never been fulfilled.

The big question now is why? Why have those revolutions never succeeded in bringing about the desired change the people anticipated? And most importantly would the Arab revolution, spring-awakening or whatever they decide to call it, bring about lasting change as the people are hoping for? The answer is simply no. Successful change has never come from top to bottom, it has always come from bottom to top.

The Western democracies that these Arab countries are aspiring to emulate did not change from top to bottom, rather they first changed their populations and the population produced good leaders. All Western democratic systems have been in existence for centuries. The monarchs in many Western democracies have been in power for ever and they remain intact. What is the difference: the difference is enlightenment and education. When Britain was in the midst of desperation and poverty many centuries ago, as it is in many Arab countries today, they did not change the king, they changed the system. The enlightenment came into being. The main crux of the enlightenment program was natural law and justice, religion and political tolerance, human rights, freedom and equality for all. As those norms took root in society, the industrial revolution came into being and institutions were built to sustain those developments.

Visit an Arab country and you see a modern and striving society on the surface: modern buildings, glittering sky scrapers and all the modern facilities you will find in any western metropolitan city. However, beneath that façade of modernity is this primitive culture striving to hold its own in the modern world. The Arab world is a big oxymoron: 16th century society trying to survive in the 21st century reality.

Read Part Two Next Week

Question by alistair: Did you know Muammar al-Gaddafi of Libya doesn’t like republican government?
From his writings:

“Parliaments are the backbone of that conventional democracy prevailing in the world today. Parliament is a misrepresentation of the people, and parliamentary systems are a false solution to the problem of democracy. A parliament is originally founded to represent the people, but this in itself is undemocratic as democracy means the authority of the people and not an authority acting on their behalf. The mere existence of a parliament means the absence of the people. True democracy exists only through the direct participation of the people, and not through the activity of their representatives. Parliaments have been a legal barrier between the people and the exercise of authority, excluding the masses from meaningful politics and monopolizing sovereignty in their place. People are left with only a facade of democracy, manifested in long queues to cast their election ballots.

To lay bare the character of parliaments, one has to examine their origin. They are either elected from constituencies, a party, or a coalition of parties, or are appointed. But all of these procedures are undemocratic, for dividing the population into constituencies means that one member of parliament represents thousands, hundreds of thousands, or millions of people, depending on the size of the population. It also means that a member keeps few popular organizational links with the electors since he, like other members, is considered a representative of the whole people. This is what the prevailing traditional democracy requires. The masses are completely isolated from the representative and he, in turn, is totally removed from them. Immediately after winning the electors’ votes the representative takes over the people’s sovereignty and acts on their behalf. The prevailing traditional democracy endows the member of parliament with a sacredness and immunity which are denied to the rest of the people. Parliaments, therefore, have become a means of plundering and usurping the authority of the people. It has thus become the right of the people to struggle, through popular revolution, to destroy such instruments – the so-called parliamentary assemblies which usurp democracy and sovereignty, and which stifle the will of the people. The masses have the right to proclaim reverberantly the new principle: no representation in lieu of the people.”

“The existence of many parties intensifies the struggle for power, and this results in the neglect of any achievements for the people and of any socially beneficial plans. Such actions are presented as a justification to undermine the position of the ruling party so that an opposing party can replace it. The parties very seldom resort to arms in their struggle but, rather, denounce and denigrate the actions of each other. This is a battle which is inevitably waged at the expense of the higher, vital interests of the society. Some, if not all, of those higher interests will fall prey to the struggle for power between instruments of government, for the destruction of those interests supports the opposition in their argument against the ruling party or parties. In order to rule, the opposition party has to defeat the existing instrument of government.

To do so, the opposition must minimize the government’s achievements and cast doubt on its plans, even though those plans may be beneficial to the society. Consequently, the interests and programs of the society become the victims of the parties’ struggle for power. Such struggle is, therefore, politically, socially, and economically destructive to the society, despite the fact that it creates political activity.”

Best answer:

Answer by Yepper
That’s because Ronnie beat him into submission.

What do you think? Answer below!

Do You believe Reuters Song “Libya has NO DEMOCRACY?” ELOQUENT FACTS OF THE SOCIALIST LIBYA: * GDP per capita – $ 14192. * Unemployment benefit – $ 730. * Each family member subsidized by the state gets annually $ 1.000 * Salary for nurses – $ 1.000. * For every newborn is paid $ 7.000. * The bride and groom receive a $ 64 thousand to purchase flats. * Major taxes and levies prohibited. * To open a personal business a one-time financial assistance of $ 20.000 * Education and medicine are free. * Educ.Internships abroad – at government expense. * Stores for large families with symbolic prices for basic foodstuffs. * Part of pharmacies – with free dispensing. * Loans for buying a car and an apartment – no interest. * Real estate services are prohibited., * Buying a car up to 50% paid by the State. * No Payment for electricity for the population. * Sales and use of alcohol is prohibited. * Petrol is cheaper than water. 1 liter of gasoline – $ 0.14. ******************* TEXT VERSION: rapidshare.com ******************* TV STATION: tvrain.ru Journalists: translate.google.com translate.google.com

Things sometimes get so bad that something must change and everyone knows it. This is what is happening in the Arab world today. The problem is that a common effort of getting rid of a Mubarak or Gadhafi does not result from the work of a single leader. As we see in Revolution 2.0, social media are strong in spreading a consensus quickly, but they are poor at identifying leadership.

The Washington Post published, “Sustaining a Leaderless Revolt in Egypt” in its March 24, 2011 edition. Author William Wan pointed out that now that the primary objective of Mubarak’s ouster has been achieved, there are hundreds or thousands of interest groups with all sorts of different agendas that are squabbling over what comes next. This is inevitable, and also adds historical clarity to the queasy feeling of many commentators over the U.N. Security Council’s decision on Libya. Who are the leaders of the “opposition,” and what is their agenda?

Historical parallels give pause. The French public finally understood that something needed to be done about their monarchy in 1789, when they stormed the Bastille, but the aftermath took ten years to play out. Between September 5, 1793 and July 27, 1794 the so-called Reign of Terror killed up to 40,000. It was brought on by both real and imagined conspiracies among rival political groups, both foreign and domestic.

Early on CNN, MSNBC, and other major media outlets selected Egyptian Wael Ghonim, the Google marketing executive, as the leader of Revolution 2.0, though he spent much of the actual protest time imprisoned by the Mubarak regime. One tearful interview after such an ordeal does not make a leader, but perhaps we are seeing something very interesting about Ghonim’s personality profile since former President Mubarak’s departure.

Wan’s article points out that after Mubarak’s fall competing interests objected to Ghonim’s media spotlight, and asked him to stand down from so much public attention. A search for recent stories about him suggests that he has complied. Some may believe this means that he has withdrawn from the leadership of Revolution 2.0, but a sampling from his Twitter timeline, @Ghonim, suggests that he is just keeping on keeping on.

His continuing interest in the power of his >125,000 following on Twitter and his Facebook notoriety is made clear in this Tweet from March 22, 2011: @Ghonim “Plz help us determine the future role that #KhaledSaid FB Fanpage can play given that it has 1m Egyptians http://bit.ly/gVqSc8“

Ghonim’s recent mentions of #Syria #Yemen and #KhaledSaid clearly tell us that he is seeing something much broader than just the downfall of Hosni Mubarak and a revolutionized Egypt. And, he is intelligent enough to see what the squabbling post-Mubarak means for his own long-term success.

It seems to me that he is launching a leadership revolution over the past few weeks. His original notoriety and continued social media activity reveals that his personality profile may be “ENTP” on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test. This is an instrument that identifies personality tendencies based on Jungian Psychology, and the writings on personality type of Carl G. Jung. The implications for leadership styles and skills can be easily found by looking for “Portrait of an ENTP” in any search engine.

Another time I will address the broad implications of the Myers-Briggs personality profile in determining who will emerge as the leaders of Revolution 2.0. One thing is clear, the fall of a despot is only the beginning of Revolution 2.0, as any Frenchman will be happy to tell you.

Question by chaosancx: Timeline of Middle Eastern Revolution?
Can anyone give me any sort of timeline or summary of main events from the spark of all of the middle eastern revolution (i believe it started in tunisia) all the way to where we stand with Libya? Anything would be helpful.

Best answer:

Answer by Atmospheric Pressure
A long time, it starts with peace and forgiveness. I love the idea!

Give your answer to this question below!

Question by lostinwonderlanf: What were the causes of the 2011 Libyan uprising?
Also:

What type of government did Libya have before the revolution?
How does it involve/relate to the United States?

Best answer:

Answer by Lex
They had same leader for several decades so, once they saw neighboring countries overthrow their dictators I think the uprising just spread like wild fire over there. Google Julian Asange, Tweeter revolution, Egypt….etc…etc. Tweeter, Facebook, these social online stuff were pretty big deal in recent mid east uprising.

Give your answer to this question below!

This question is being asked by ordinary citizens throughout many countries around the world, none the least by Americans, French and British, the three principal countries currently involved in bombing Colonel Muammar Gadaffi’s Headquarters, and other military installations in that country. This, in response to the UN’s resolution to enforce a ”no fly zone over the …country” . On the premise, of protecting innocent libyan citizens from being slaughtered by Gadaffi’s troops.

But what happens when the dust settles, are coalition forces, going to be stuck there for years, helping to rebuild, and police the country? all the while – being vehemently hated by all sides, to the extent that, the manufactures of ‘body bags’ will once more do a roaring trade.

Shades of Iraq? Most definitely.

Surely the time has come, if not already long overdue, when the man in the street, ordinary citizens ,like you and I, have a voice, which must be listened to, in our respective so-called democratic countries, when it comes to the question of invading another man’s country, no matter what the reason. Politicians can no longer be trusted to make the right decisions, on such important issues, there are far too many war mongering lunatics, on both sides of the Atlantic, these are the same people who are responsible for the state of the global economy as it stands today. What about the cost of being the policeman to the world? No worries! we’ll just print some more money, there, problem solved, Human cost ? Well, as long as its not my son or daughter, who cares ?

Well Mr Politician, I , and millions like me, care. All right- minded people wherever they maybe in the world, care. If you think that its acceptable to see your loved one arrive home in a body bag, you are sadly mistaken – . What is also unacceptable, is your feeble excuses to justify, invasion in the first place. You were wrong about W.M.D. and Iraq, you are wrong about Afghanistan, and you are most definitely wrong about Libya.

It now transpires that President Obama took the decision on his own, in conjunction with coalition forces to enforce the Libyan no fly zone without consulting with his Government, like many Presidents before him, Mr Reagan, Mr Clinton, Mr Bush. No doubt in the days that lie ahead he will be reminded of his pre-election speech in which he said, ” the President does not have the right to declare war/invasion of another country without full consultation with the senate.” Once again this has happened, and there are certain lawmakers who are claiming he has committed an ” impeachable offence”. An interesting scenario is likely to develop.

He has also failed to offer clear-cut objectives, and recognition of peoples right to know, what- when- where- why- things are being done in their name. People have a host of questions, which need answers, failure by politicians to recognise these facts , ironically, could lead to what is happening in Libya- Yemen- Tunisia- Egypt. People marching in the streets calling for democracy. Only this time real true meaningful democracy that is all inclusive.